SIGHTED IN: Trunk questions linger heading into meeting

Peterborough This Week

It's no secret the Northwest Trunk Sewer project has raised serious questions about whether or not council is getting the right information to make a serious decision on the Trunk's most crucial component - crossing the Scugog River.

Related Stories

That crossing involves taking the pipes that will carry wastewater to the Lindsay pump station. If the job isn't done right, it could pose a serious environmental and/or financial threat.

Steering committee chair and councillor Andy Luff leads the engineers and consultants who support boring under the river using the latest technology. Ward 12 Coun. Gord James and his camp want to build a bridge over it.

Coun. James says a bridge is more cost effective, more environmentally safe and has the bonus of serving as a recreational bridge for pedestrians, cyclists, ATVs, etc. Coun. Luff says the drilling is safe and uses the latest technology.

I can't say if going under the river would be good or bad, although I do recall one argument that pipes full of moving wastewater are more stable surrounded by rock than hanging off a bridge. If it is really the best choice, fine. Either way, the pipes have to get across the river.

On Wednesday, the public can attend a meeting at City Hall about the Trunk.

Some questions I have:

Why has this changed from requiring one pipe a few years ago to now requiring two?

How did the Trunk get so far beyond its original predicted cost of $5 million (to about $18 million at last tally; and could hit $20 million)?

Why was a bridge option never seriously considered from the start, and been given short shrift ever since?

Why did Coun. James take it upon himself to get the specs and cost estimates of a bridge. (He told me he's spent more than 200 hours on this so far.)

Isn't this why we we pay consultants?

They evaluated a bridge - but they admitted at the last steering committee meeting that it wasn't done to the same degree as the under-river options because council never issued that direction.

To be fair, perhaps council thought that, given the magnitude of the Trunk project, that would have happened as a matter of course.

So, we now have two groups of councillors split at the 11th hour, and the public is asking 'what the heck?'

The Trunk is much-needed infrastructure. But, seeing how things have unfolded, why does there seem to be an urgency to 'ram' this through council?